Friday, July 29, 2005

Even the Astute Screw Up

I'm not often wrong on my assessment of people. I'm not always right but I'm not often wrong and when I am wrong it's usually about something minor. When I go out on a limb for a person and go out of my way to extol the virtues of a person to other people it's usually right on the money. Credit it to Piscean intuition or whatever but I'm usually not wrong on my people.

When I am wrong, I tend to take it personally and I get hurt and mopey for a while and try to over-think where I went wrong in my judgment.

Recently I have been totally wrong about someone I was ready to walk on fire for if need be. Not just wrong, we're in the totally and completely utterly WRONG place here.

(continues inside, no names given) It does make me sad, I had genuine love for this person and I really thought the words exchanged were for real and there was a bond that was genuine. Turns out there is very little that is genuine about said person.

You don't make someone feel guilty because they want/need to know they matter to you. You don't feed them excuse after excuse as to why you can't send an email or a note, why you can't extend simple courtesies like hello or goodbye, you don't make a person feel like a bother because they don't feel like you give a damn when your actions show that hey, you don't give a damn.

I've seen this lately from this person and it made me sit and think. I did a bit of research into this person's past and came up with a few connections. One being this person is very much a self-oriented manipulator. I won't say user as that's a tad harsh but definitely manipulator. One of those who will tell you whatever you want to hear and mean none of it and be damn convincing at it. A dangerous person who is skilled with words and knows exactly how and when to pile it on. Like when they need/want something. When they are alone and need companionship, written or spoken.

Manipulators really turn me off, I've known too many of them in my time. People content to move from victim to victim, living off them and getting what they want without having to put anything into anything. Promising things and saying/doing just what is wanted to assuage any doubts the unsuspecting victim might have. Uttering words exactly the opposite the second the first person turns their back. Why live if you can exist off of someone else and sit back and party all the time. Hell, all it takes are some words and actions and those are a small exchange for it.

How I got myself into this kettle of carp confuzzles me a bit, how on Earth did I miss this? I can see the history of moving from one to the other, I've got plenty of the words myself that would really hurt the victim here if they ever came out. How did I not see that I was playing right into the selfish game of a brilliant and completely self-serving master manipulator?

I would probably still be in it, believing and hoping and cajoling, had I not directly asked for some sort of affirmation of what my presence in this person's life meant. What I got were a bunch of excuses as to why I could not have this small thing. No time. Have to clean. Have to think. Computer got hijacked. Have to sleep. Have to wake up and start the daily avoidance of life by drinking the morning beer and not stopping till passed out. Wallowing in self pity and self hatred masked by alcohol and lies.

The minute I asked for a return on my emotional investment I was discarded. It's not the way of the manipulator to offer truth and I finally started to see through the veil of lies. I never asked this person to wear their heart on their sleeve but when a close friend asks for affirmation, give it.

I had a friend named Betsy who was very much like this person. Betsy rarely worked, she tended to drift through the guys in our circle, letting them support her and take care of her and provide for her financially and emotionally. She was good at what she did, she was a somewhat homely girl who had a sharp mind and a way with words. In the first two years of knowing Betsy she went through 6 different guys and had maybe one job that I can recall (ah the nights hanging out at Dominos eating pizza after pizza!). She would give them sex and sexual fun, she would tell them what they wanted to hear. Like the person I write about, there was a pattern in the men Betsy picked. They were insecure about themselves, they needed a partner to validate themselves. They were eager to believe someone could find them attractive, intelligent and worthwhile. And Betsy would get her cigarettes, her beer, her clothes, her food, her rent money. Eventually they would figure out that Betsy was playing them and walk away bleeding from the heart but she had already lined up her next target.

Faith Anne knew the deal, she never liked Betsy.

I admit my mistake here in believing in this person, I admit my gullible side exists even if it is small. I used to blame the victim in this mess, I never pointed my cannons of blame at the right person. Now I feel for this person's current
victim. I could have caused a stir, a paper trail is a hard thing to dispute, but what's the point. Why rock worlds when I can just as easily sever connections to the manipulator?

Makes me sad to see a brilliant mind wasted on staggering through life inebriated and avoiding truth, merely existing and waiting for the next bit if bad juju. Wallowing in the mire of self pity and doing absolutely nothing to change the situation and blaming it on circumstance and life - anything but the self. It's sad to see someone you know could be a genuine impact-maker because of a brilliant mind waste it all on the easy way out and living in a fugue state. Dead. While not physically dead, very much emotionally dead by choice.

Yah, I'm still annoyed at myself for being gullible and for believing and for being as ugly as I was towards the big bad manipulator's victim. For not being able to see the truth behind the pretty words. For letting myself believe I was in the wrong by asking for a simple affirmation. For feeing the pity party by cooing sympathy and compassion for this person's situation and ignoring the fact that it was entirely self created and self prolonged.

There is no more sad though, the crescendo played yesterday as I sat utterly ignored. It was as if my Guide vocal made a decision to lift the gates and let truth come rushing in. I was able to see clearly what I chose not to see before and it wasn't a pretty picture. Now I'm just glad to not believe anymore, to be out of the loop of manipulations. My friends are real and those I love return the love because it is sincere, not because there is something for them to gain from it.

It's alright to be gullible once in a while I suppose, I can admit the occasional weakness. I live purely by my emotions over everything else and sometimes that means I'm going to be guided by the heart and what I see could be inside a person rather than what is. Yet I don't want to lose that, it's the last bit of naiveté I have left and I'd rather keep it. It's okay to admit I was suckered and I shed tears for this person. It's the past now and I've learned yet another life lesson and the sting has faded.

I hope someday the manipulator is put in their place, left for the firs time completely alone with no one to milk and no one who believes. Maybe then and only then will they have an epiphany and wake up and rise to the occasion of being a cut apart from the masses. The world is so full of sheep and only a few shepherds and when a shepherd takes the wrong path they lead their sheep with them into the bad place(s). Those born into shepherhood have a responsibility not to make those mistakes and not to take the skills they were born with and use them to manipulate. I hope this person is able to find clarity and understanding and perhaps then we will reunite as familiar strangers.

This chapter is closed. Purge completed.

And now it's over
I write it all down
No one to notice
One less face in the crowd
Our eyes are open
When it suits us to see
Dear God in heaven
Show no mercy to me

Wave (wave) goodbye...
See my heart ... so blue

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